Post 1099 Has No Title

As part of the eternal quest for ME TIME, I went out today in search of a nice little salon where I could get my hair highlighted. I seem to have this bad habit of coming up with random schemes and then trying to make them happen on a shoestring. Yesterday I decided all I wanted was highlights, today I tried to make it happen.

Though this is New Westminster, land of a thousand hair salons, it is also The Mizzle, where nothing is open on Monday even when it’s NOT a holiday. So I soldiered on to Burnaby and there I also found precisely nothing. I was avoiding malls because it is the last day before school starts. Suddenly realizing I was squandering my ME TIME, I went into the closest Shopper’s Drug Mart and bought a home highlighting kit for $14.99. Suck it, salons of The Mizzle and Burnaby.

Of course by the time I got home to play with my highlighting kit, I had precious little time to do the work so the bleach got left on a little longer than it might have been at a real salon. I was cooking chili while the bleach was bleaching and then the baby woke up from his nap and wanted food and then I was concentrating on burping him without giving him a mouthful of peroxide and by the time I looked at the clock, it was Oh! I Must Go Rinse Immediately o’clock.

Blonde streaks do go a long way towards making a person think she is making a fresh start.

I also needed a new facial moisturizer which is how I came to an isle of the drug store that I do not usually frequent: skin care. My favourite facial moisturizer is a Body Shop brand but I figured: why not, I’m at a drug store and I have Points to use so let’s you and me pick something real special. I think I’m Worth It.

I probably don’t have to tell most of you how many insane combinations of herbs, spices, flavours and oxides there are in the facial care arena. You can be preserved, rejuvenated, invigorated, detoxified, de-linified, plumped and protected from sun, all for only $50 a jar. It’s wild. The new thing appears to be caffeine, which Sarah wrote about the other day. There were a lot of products that contained caffeine, none of them edible.

There were two lightweight L’Oreal moisturizers on sale. I had a really hard time deciding. Would it be the Hydrafresh gel-creme “charged with multi-minerals”? The Advanced Revitalift? Skin Genesis Multilayer Skin Strengthening Formula? (Sadly I did not see the moisturizer named “Happyderm” that I just now found on the L’Oreal website because Happyderm would have been a shoe-in.) After much pondering, I went with the Hydrafresh, in part because of its “exhilarating citrus fragrance.” I hope it was the right decision. If I am writing next week that I have no skin on my face, you are all my witnesses.

In the clearance isle I made a spectacle of myself laughing at a product by Curel, a company I tend to associate with Real Science for whatever reason. It was on for half price at $4 and it was called Pregnancy and Motherhood cream. It’s OB-GYN tested! (I am assuming tested by not tested on.)

I am not lying. Look here. See, when you’re pregnant, your skin is stretching. So you should moisturize it. With special pregnant lady cream. Sure – I’ve heard of pregnant belly cream. Because the Industry wants you to think you can cure or prevent stretch marks. (Insert loud buzzer noise here.)

What confused me was the “motherhood” part of the equation. Motherhood cream? No one told me there was a cream for motherhood! The website explains: “[our cream] also relieves dry, tight skin, making it soft and comfortable, including postpartum skin.” Hi, Curel! My postpartum skin is neither tight nor dry. It is loose from the stretching and moist from all the baby saliva I am doused with whenever I go within 4 feet of my baby. But thanks. Nice try.

Curel also makes the next two steps of cream for women. They call it their “Life’s Stages” line. Next stage: anti-aging and then, super-menopause. I would bet dollars to donuts each of those bottles contains exactly the same moisturizer as every other bottle of moisturizer in the world. Except for my Hydrafresh. It’s different.

I did not buy the Pregnancy and Motherhood cream. Even though it was only $4. I think this shows remarkable restraint and proves that I am a changed woman now that it is September.